fixpc
Member
Everyone that has built the saltwater fish tank has an opinion . They will tell you what to look for, what equipment to buy, which equipment to run on your cycle and how long the cycle should take. I'm going to break this down step-by-step like this is a new set up. One main thing I want everyone to know a saltwater reef tank is not a poor man's hobby it's a lot of fun it takes work and a lot of money to maintain please do not go into this lightly these are living organisms that you are taking care of.
Always buy your equipment first this may sound silly but I know a lot of people that put together their tank while it cycling they feel that they can start the cycle and buy their equipment at the same time. The problem with this is your disturbing the tank by putting equipment in and changing the water parameters. So what equipment do you need one that's a big question you need to know what kind of livestock you going to put in that,tank is it going to be a fish only tank do you think you have any aspirations to have corals in the future. You need to know What kind of fish do you want. A lot of people will buy a 30 gallon tank and think they're going to have tangs swimming around you should not put large fish in a small tank. a 30 gallon tank is good for fish that do not move around a lot or are less than 2 inches at adult size. Also the smaller tank the more work you going to need to do on it.
For starter tanks 55 gallons is a good size give you a lot of room to work with that size is still not big enough to put tangs but you can have nice colorful medium-size fish in this tank, also there is a lot of real estate for coral. In this scenario were going to use a 55 gallon fish tank. At the same time you buy your tank you should be looking for some base rock, a lot of people will tell me I'm wrong and you should go to live rock immediately this is a huge cost and I believe the unnecessary base rock in time will turn into live rock. Base rock Is the same as live rock just without living organisms on it or in it. Your base rock should be washed with reverse osmosis water. here's another piece of equipment you need a reverse osmosis water filter this is a must. The good thing about using base rock is that you have all the time you need to aqua scape your tank this means arranging the rocks and securing the rocks together in a manner that is pleasing to your eyes and functional for placement of coral you should ham 1 and 1/2 pounds of base rock for every gallon tank you have so on a 55 gallon tank you should have around 80 pounds of rock. These rocks should be all different sizes but please make sure you have a substantial amount of large rocks.
Before putting the rock in your tank you need to make a decision on what kind the sand bed you would like.
There are a lot of opinions on this,there are people that will tell you to go with no sand bed the tank with no sand bed can be easier to maintain because all the fish poop and food can be easily removed from the tank. Then there is a shallow sand bed this sand bed allows you to have the visual effect of sand and allows you to keep creatures that like sand in your tank. Your other choice is a deep sand bed deep sand bed is a sand bed that is no more than 5 inches high and no less than 3 inches high. A deep sand bed actually serves a purpose in the nitrogen cycle ,there is a portion of the sand on the bottom that is oxygen depleted the oxygen depleted sand has a denitrifying effect it will turn no2 to nitrogen. My opinion is a deep sand bed is a problem waiting to happen if it's not maintained correctly it can cause a crash in your tank killing all your livestock I also believe that you're live rock and small water changes is more than enough to do the nitrogen cycle. My suggestion would be a shallow sand bed no more than an inch high.
Now you should have a 55 gallon tank hopefully you a stand to put the tank on, in the tank you should have a one inch sand bed and 80 pounds of rock. Let's move on to your lights. Because were going to the coral in this tank we need a good powerful lighting system is a lot of things you need to decide. Depending on what kind of coral you want to keep would will change will kind of lights you need. Also there are lights that have a small upfront cost but a yearly cost to maintain can be high. Right now there are four kinds of lights that you can use 1 PowerPCs 2 T fives 3 Metal Halide 4 LED's. PowerPC lights are good for soft corals and not much more the bulbs also need to be replaced every six months each bulb can cost around $20 a piece and on a 55 gallon tank you would have four bulbs so your yearly cost not accounting 160$ a year. T5 are much brighter and the bulbs last twice as long with T5 lights can keep soft corals LPS and some SPS corals but may not have enough a light for clams and Anemone. Your average yearly maintenance costs t5 lights would be around $80 a year PowerPCs t5 have a relatively small upfront. Metal Halide lights are very bright you can grow any kind of coral with these lights the problem is the cost for these lights are expensive. At one point these kind lights would give you the best light for your money but LEDs are now in the same price range as Metal Halide with LEDs you never need to replace the bulb and they use substantial less energy of all of the lights. For instance a Metal Halide light system for a 55 gallon tank would have two 120 W bulbs and two 55 watt T5 bulbs in it for total of 350 W a LED light system would be around 120 watts of power and put out the same amount of light.Any of these lights will work if your decision just want to give you some info.
Now let's move on to filtration many people will tell you that you live rock and a protein skimmer is all you really need for your filtration the right that's all you really need, I like to have a little bit more. There are two different tank you can buy get a drill tank which has holes in the glass to allow the water to pass outside the tank and into a filtration system if the tank is not drilled you would need something called an overflow an overflow will take the water and pass it outside your tank to your filtration. A lot of people use sumps a good thing about sumps is you can house your equipment in the sump, you would be able to put your protein skimmer, heater ,chemical,mechanical filtration. If you buy a sump please make sure that it is closed and nothing can get into it mistakingly. I personally like a wet dry filter with a built-in protein skimmer. The reason why I like the wet dry filter it helps with the cycling of your tank when you first set it up also it gives you a place to put chemical media in. A wet dry filter comes with a place to put filtration pads carbon phosphate removing pads, bio balls, and other filtration media some people say that the bio balls are a nitrogen factory I say that is a bull if you do not clean your filters it will increase your nitrogen in your tank if you maintain your filters it is not a problem. Why I think this is bull is because they say that not consumed food and debris get stuck on the bio balls the bio balls have bacteria on it that break this stuff into nitrates and nitrites. The same thing happens on any media or any filtration you put in the tank if there is un used food no matter what you're using the bacteria will break it down. You always have the option to remove the bio balls out of the wet dry filter and I do remove the bio balls in time out of the filter. So this scenario I will use a wet dry filter with a built-in protein skimmer.
Okay now you should have a tank with rock and sand some lights and a filter and a way for the water to leave your tank and get to the filter. It is now time to fill your tank with water remember the water that you're putting in this tank should not be directly from your tap it should be filtered water using a R/O water filter you nothing living in tank right now so you should fill your tank up with non-salted water what your tank is filled it's time to make all your adjustments. I forgot to mention that you're going to need power heads in your tank to move the water your water in your tank should have a nice current two 550 gallons per hour would work .Some adjustments would be water temperature a digital temperature gauge is a great thing to have and make adjusting the temperature much easier you should aim for temperature around 78° your lights put out heat your pumps put out heat so you should see the change in temperature when you lights come on you may see a fluctuation of temperature when I do set my temperature to 78° with the lights off at that put the lights on I read the temperature after the lights are on for four hours as long as the temperature does not go up more than 2° I am satisfied. your temperature set now and you just did your current in your tank now time to start adding salt you going to add of salt slowly first inning the bulk within at one time doing one scoop at time and waiting for to dissolve.
After your salt is added it's now time to start you are cycling of the tank the best way to do this is to add some live rubble rock you can get this at your local pet store that specializes in reef tanks and saltwater fish for 55 gallon tank I would put 10 pounds of live rubble rock. After you and your rock you should add two small small non-cooked shrimp put them someplace in the tank we can see them. The shrimp will start to decay they should start looking really nasty after three or four days. Now you should start taking ammonia readings you should see ammonia in your tank with your test kit keep testing until your ammonia spikes this means it does not go up anymore from the last day you tested now it's time to start testing it NO3 once you start seeing a large amount of NO3 (when I mean large amount I mean off the scale) you're going to start testing for NO2 when you see any indication of NO2 you going to start adding vinegar this is where people going to say I'm crazy but it works you going to add 15 mL of vinegar a day keep adding the vinegar every day for three days and then test everything after three days only add 5 mL of vinegar until you start seeing all your levels going down what you see levels going down you going to stop adding vinegar. I have cycle the tank for less than two weeks like this.
Now you have the cycles tank now is the time your tank is going to start to look like absolute garbage. You will get brown algae all over your tank then you brown algae will start going away and you'll start getting green algae the glass of the tank then you will start getting a green film on all the rocks. you will start coral line algae on your tank in small quantities it's now time to start getting the cleaning crew. start with snails that will eat algae and snails that eat leftover food you can also buy hermit crabs and that should be it. Do not buy a coral or any fish at this point you need to fight your algae outbreak,It's much difficult to fight it with any livestock. the snails will start doing there job you should help them buy scraping the sides of the walls of your tank and clean any hair algae forms on the rocks. Once you start seeing the algae going away you can start adding some fish one or two at a time. A good fish to start with is an algae eating fish. It's also time to do your first water change this water change and all water changes should be small for 55 gallon tank I would only replace 5 gallons at a time. if you want to do 5 gallons a week that's fine or 5 gallons every two weeks but don't do more than 5 gallons at one time the change in temperature and salinity will never match within your tank perfectly and will put stress on the fish in the water change is to large. I've probably left some stuff out, if you have any questions do not hesitate to writing me right back. My way works well for me but I know there'll be people in this message board that will contradict most of what I said that's okay listen to everyone and make up your mind
Jon sciarrino
[list type=decimal]
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Always buy your equipment first this may sound silly but I know a lot of people that put together their tank while it cycling they feel that they can start the cycle and buy their equipment at the same time. The problem with this is your disturbing the tank by putting equipment in and changing the water parameters. So what equipment do you need one that's a big question you need to know what kind of livestock you going to put in that,tank is it going to be a fish only tank do you think you have any aspirations to have corals in the future. You need to know What kind of fish do you want. A lot of people will buy a 30 gallon tank and think they're going to have tangs swimming around you should not put large fish in a small tank. a 30 gallon tank is good for fish that do not move around a lot or are less than 2 inches at adult size. Also the smaller tank the more work you going to need to do on it.
For starter tanks 55 gallons is a good size give you a lot of room to work with that size is still not big enough to put tangs but you can have nice colorful medium-size fish in this tank, also there is a lot of real estate for coral. In this scenario were going to use a 55 gallon fish tank. At the same time you buy your tank you should be looking for some base rock, a lot of people will tell me I'm wrong and you should go to live rock immediately this is a huge cost and I believe the unnecessary base rock in time will turn into live rock. Base rock Is the same as live rock just without living organisms on it or in it. Your base rock should be washed with reverse osmosis water. here's another piece of equipment you need a reverse osmosis water filter this is a must. The good thing about using base rock is that you have all the time you need to aqua scape your tank this means arranging the rocks and securing the rocks together in a manner that is pleasing to your eyes and functional for placement of coral you should ham 1 and 1/2 pounds of base rock for every gallon tank you have so on a 55 gallon tank you should have around 80 pounds of rock. These rocks should be all different sizes but please make sure you have a substantial amount of large rocks.
Before putting the rock in your tank you need to make a decision on what kind the sand bed you would like.
There are a lot of opinions on this,there are people that will tell you to go with no sand bed the tank with no sand bed can be easier to maintain because all the fish poop and food can be easily removed from the tank. Then there is a shallow sand bed this sand bed allows you to have the visual effect of sand and allows you to keep creatures that like sand in your tank. Your other choice is a deep sand bed deep sand bed is a sand bed that is no more than 5 inches high and no less than 3 inches high. A deep sand bed actually serves a purpose in the nitrogen cycle ,there is a portion of the sand on the bottom that is oxygen depleted the oxygen depleted sand has a denitrifying effect it will turn no2 to nitrogen. My opinion is a deep sand bed is a problem waiting to happen if it's not maintained correctly it can cause a crash in your tank killing all your livestock I also believe that you're live rock and small water changes is more than enough to do the nitrogen cycle. My suggestion would be a shallow sand bed no more than an inch high.
Now you should have a 55 gallon tank hopefully you a stand to put the tank on, in the tank you should have a one inch sand bed and 80 pounds of rock. Let's move on to your lights. Because were going to the coral in this tank we need a good powerful lighting system is a lot of things you need to decide. Depending on what kind of coral you want to keep would will change will kind of lights you need. Also there are lights that have a small upfront cost but a yearly cost to maintain can be high. Right now there are four kinds of lights that you can use 1 PowerPCs 2 T fives 3 Metal Halide 4 LED's. PowerPC lights are good for soft corals and not much more the bulbs also need to be replaced every six months each bulb can cost around $20 a piece and on a 55 gallon tank you would have four bulbs so your yearly cost not accounting 160$ a year. T5 are much brighter and the bulbs last twice as long with T5 lights can keep soft corals LPS and some SPS corals but may not have enough a light for clams and Anemone. Your average yearly maintenance costs t5 lights would be around $80 a year PowerPCs t5 have a relatively small upfront. Metal Halide lights are very bright you can grow any kind of coral with these lights the problem is the cost for these lights are expensive. At one point these kind lights would give you the best light for your money but LEDs are now in the same price range as Metal Halide with LEDs you never need to replace the bulb and they use substantial less energy of all of the lights. For instance a Metal Halide light system for a 55 gallon tank would have two 120 W bulbs and two 55 watt T5 bulbs in it for total of 350 W a LED light system would be around 120 watts of power and put out the same amount of light.Any of these lights will work if your decision just want to give you some info.
Now let's move on to filtration many people will tell you that you live rock and a protein skimmer is all you really need for your filtration the right that's all you really need, I like to have a little bit more. There are two different tank you can buy get a drill tank which has holes in the glass to allow the water to pass outside the tank and into a filtration system if the tank is not drilled you would need something called an overflow an overflow will take the water and pass it outside your tank to your filtration. A lot of people use sumps a good thing about sumps is you can house your equipment in the sump, you would be able to put your protein skimmer, heater ,chemical,mechanical filtration. If you buy a sump please make sure that it is closed and nothing can get into it mistakingly. I personally like a wet dry filter with a built-in protein skimmer. The reason why I like the wet dry filter it helps with the cycling of your tank when you first set it up also it gives you a place to put chemical media in. A wet dry filter comes with a place to put filtration pads carbon phosphate removing pads, bio balls, and other filtration media some people say that the bio balls are a nitrogen factory I say that is a bull if you do not clean your filters it will increase your nitrogen in your tank if you maintain your filters it is not a problem. Why I think this is bull is because they say that not consumed food and debris get stuck on the bio balls the bio balls have bacteria on it that break this stuff into nitrates and nitrites. The same thing happens on any media or any filtration you put in the tank if there is un used food no matter what you're using the bacteria will break it down. You always have the option to remove the bio balls out of the wet dry filter and I do remove the bio balls in time out of the filter. So this scenario I will use a wet dry filter with a built-in protein skimmer.
Okay now you should have a tank with rock and sand some lights and a filter and a way for the water to leave your tank and get to the filter. It is now time to fill your tank with water remember the water that you're putting in this tank should not be directly from your tap it should be filtered water using a R/O water filter you nothing living in tank right now so you should fill your tank up with non-salted water what your tank is filled it's time to make all your adjustments. I forgot to mention that you're going to need power heads in your tank to move the water your water in your tank should have a nice current two 550 gallons per hour would work .Some adjustments would be water temperature a digital temperature gauge is a great thing to have and make adjusting the temperature much easier you should aim for temperature around 78° your lights put out heat your pumps put out heat so you should see the change in temperature when you lights come on you may see a fluctuation of temperature when I do set my temperature to 78° with the lights off at that put the lights on I read the temperature after the lights are on for four hours as long as the temperature does not go up more than 2° I am satisfied. your temperature set now and you just did your current in your tank now time to start adding salt you going to add of salt slowly first inning the bulk within at one time doing one scoop at time and waiting for to dissolve.
After your salt is added it's now time to start you are cycling of the tank the best way to do this is to add some live rubble rock you can get this at your local pet store that specializes in reef tanks and saltwater fish for 55 gallon tank I would put 10 pounds of live rubble rock. After you and your rock you should add two small small non-cooked shrimp put them someplace in the tank we can see them. The shrimp will start to decay they should start looking really nasty after three or four days. Now you should start taking ammonia readings you should see ammonia in your tank with your test kit keep testing until your ammonia spikes this means it does not go up anymore from the last day you tested now it's time to start testing it NO3 once you start seeing a large amount of NO3 (when I mean large amount I mean off the scale) you're going to start testing for NO2 when you see any indication of NO2 you going to start adding vinegar this is where people going to say I'm crazy but it works you going to add 15 mL of vinegar a day keep adding the vinegar every day for three days and then test everything after three days only add 5 mL of vinegar until you start seeing all your levels going down what you see levels going down you going to stop adding vinegar. I have cycle the tank for less than two weeks like this.
Now you have the cycles tank now is the time your tank is going to start to look like absolute garbage. You will get brown algae all over your tank then you brown algae will start going away and you'll start getting green algae the glass of the tank then you will start getting a green film on all the rocks. you will start coral line algae on your tank in small quantities it's now time to start getting the cleaning crew. start with snails that will eat algae and snails that eat leftover food you can also buy hermit crabs and that should be it. Do not buy a coral or any fish at this point you need to fight your algae outbreak,It's much difficult to fight it with any livestock. the snails will start doing there job you should help them buy scraping the sides of the walls of your tank and clean any hair algae forms on the rocks. Once you start seeing the algae going away you can start adding some fish one or two at a time. A good fish to start with is an algae eating fish. It's also time to do your first water change this water change and all water changes should be small for 55 gallon tank I would only replace 5 gallons at a time. if you want to do 5 gallons a week that's fine or 5 gallons every two weeks but don't do more than 5 gallons at one time the change in temperature and salinity will never match within your tank perfectly and will put stress on the fish in the water change is to large. I've probably left some stuff out, if you have any questions do not hesitate to writing me right back. My way works well for me but I know there'll be people in this message board that will contradict most of what I said that's okay listen to everyone and make up your mind
Jon sciarrino
[list type=decimal]
[/list type=decimal]
